New York Inspired Mani

This was my contribution to the music inspired theme for this weeks challenge in the Adventures in Stamping FB group.  My music inspiration was "New York" by Jay Z and Alicia Keys. 

When I was thinking about the mani, I was thinking about what I think New York is about...not even having been there..so was thinking.....fashion, food, the theater (says in uber snobby voice), music, the Big Apple and of course, the Statue of Liberty.  Hopefully this does not offend any New Yorkers, who may have a totally different perspective of their city!  Unfortunately, I didn't have enough nails to get any food inspired stamps as part of the mani but for whatever reason, I was thinking pretzels (the cart style pretzels you see in tv shows)...do you know that in fact there is a pretzel stamp?   This was my favourite finger...er, thumb.

Anyway, started with two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet (no pix...have shown many times before).  Stamped using SdP D01 (the I♥ image), and m17 and m18 (for NY), SdP 54 (the stars at the  bottom of I ♥ NY), D08 (Liberty image), CH24 (french tip on thumb), SdP D15 (Chanel logo), SdP D03 (CK logo), KD12 (Dior logo), SdP D10 (D & G logo), SdP 45 (mask on pinky), SE18 (apple), SdP 9 (music notes), and lastly Konad m3 (the random stars around Liberty and on pinky and middle finger. Stamping polishes were Konad Red, Blue and Black special polishes.  Topped with SV...I meant to finish it off with China Glaze Fairy Dust or something to jazz it up a bit...but finished this late last night and was so tired, I had already SV'd a couple fingers before I remembered that I planned on doing it!...so nothing on top to jazz it up as intended!

A quick update on the giveaway...there were a total of 337 entries....give or take a few duplicates...I've been working on the spreadsheet, entering the ballots, extra ballots, etc., etc....and so far, I'm on ballot no. 554 and have entered about half of the entries.  I've decided I'm going to use the number generator for the winners, which I will post.  Once the *winners* have been contacted, and as they chose the plate of their choice, etc., I'll update the giveaway page so there probably won't be any further announcements on this main page until its all over; however, I'll do a final post listing all the winners to update everyone.  Just fyi.  But I'm guessing I'll start contacting those chosen (The Chosen Ones lol), within the next 24-48 hours....thanks for your patience!

Thanks for looking!

Another Christmas Mani

I did this mani quickly late last night...not terribly detailed because it was late and I was getting tired, especially after cramming alllllll my Christmas shopping into Saturday and Sunday. My brain was saying yes, continue to shop Sunday night as the stores were open late.....but my feet were saying no more, no more! I should have learned my lesson from when I went to the US last year and wore boots doing all that walking...that massive shopping trips call for running shoes!

Started with base of Color Blast by Orly in Reflection. (I didn't take pix of base, sorry). Topped with a coat of Cover Girl Goddess. I kinda goofed up here, probably because I was tired because I should have hand painted in the moon on my pinky before I topped with Goddess....but I forgot, so after I hand painted it in, I put another thin coat of Goddess on my pinky.

Stamped using Konad black special polish using T45 (reindeers), D-01 (sleigh), D-07 (words Merry Christmas) and SdP C-19 (Santa).

Topped with coat of SV. Here's my not often seen right hand, which I stamped slightly different using Christmas themed stamps.

Is your Christmas shopping done? I'm done...I think. Now just need to find the time to do some wrapping!

Thanks for looking!

'Moves Like Jagger' Mani!

Lately, I've been obsessed with this Maroon 5 song. The first time I heard it, I actually thought it was a little lame with that whoo-ooo-ooo-ing. The next time, I thought it was so so, then after a while, I thought it was a little catchy, but when I seen the video, I decided I loved it...especially all those clips of Jagger and the those imitating him! LOVE!

So I decided to do a 'Moves Like Jagger' tribute mani last night and this is what I came up with.



If you've seen the video, you'll understand the pinky finger as otherwise, it may not make sense...and I really wanted to add a big old floppy hat to incorporate Christina, but couldn't find one in my plate stash.

Here's mani in progress. Base coats are OPI Brides Bouquet (white-three coats), Illamasqua Boosh (black-one coat) and OPI Red My Fortune Cookie (two coats).



The very first thing I did before I did any amount of stamping or even painting my right hand was free hand the flag....and my apologies to anyone who I've offended in my bad interpretation of doing it! lol! I thought if the flag doesn't go well, I'll have to resort to starting over and doing another mani so didn't want to invest a great deal of time painting my nails if I was going to take it all off anyway if it was a fail.



This was first attempt at freehand nail art...I had a hard time putting dots on manis initially and have no idea why I thought I could freehand something, but oh well, I tried. I think my downfall was using a too large brush from the start when I did the red lines. I moved to a smaller one when I was doing the blue lines and in hindsight, should have used the smaller brush from the get go....lesson learned for next time! The red used for the flag was OPI Red My Fortune Cookie and the blue is CND Anchor Blue.

When I was done, while not terribly happy with the flag, I thought it was decent enough, especially for my first time, so decided to proceed with the rest of the mani.



First placed the main images using fauxnad D08 (Mick), fauxnad E (hot dancing girl), H12 (black stripes) and SdP D-1 (Stones logo; chez delaney D series also has a similar logo) using Konad red, black and white special polishes.



Then added a few random stars and the music skull notes from the Hot Topic image plates using the same special polishes, as well as the CND Anchor blue for random stars.



Lastly topped with coat of SV. I was really disappointed that I got SV drag plus it terribly faded the white stamping of the skull music notes on the pinky...I normally take pix of my mani's before applying SV in case of drag, but forgot this time. It was really disappointing to have SV drag as I wait a little while for the stamping polish to dry plus I had just thinned it earlier in the week...oh well, what can you do...except more of a reason to change your nails again! But I'm actually going to keep this on until I see a friend Saturday night who loves the Stones...I'm sure he'll get a kick out of it!

Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!

Edit: My friend loved this mani when he seen it! He frequently rocks old vintage Stones concerts tees and I was hoping he had one on when he seen it (but didn't). My DD also requested I replicate it for her nails, which I'm going to do soon!